


Why Are You Awake?

by MadJJ



Series: Starkinelli Shorts [6]
Category: Agent Carter (TV), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: F/M, Halloween, Halloween Spooky, It has spooky vibes, It's kinda spooky at least?, Meet-Cute, Meet-Ugly, Spooky, in fact it's more of a, not very shippy I'll admit
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-28
Updated: 2019-10-31
Packaged: 2021-01-05 22:08:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 1,691
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21215834
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MadJJ/pseuds/MadJJ
Summary: Angie can't sleep. She decides to go explore an abandonned wing of the manor.





	1. Sleepless

**Author's Note:**

> It's not very shippy, it's not very Halloweeny, but that's all I've got >.<

Angie tossed in her bed and shifted to face the wall. Then she shifted again, her eyes landing on the desk on the opposite side of her bed. There still laid the heavy pile of newspaper she had abandoned on top of it. She had grown too frustrated and given up on her research for the night, but now she couldn’t find sleep.

She sighed aggressively and pushed herself up. Her head felt wonky after staying down for an hour. She peered at the clock at the bedside table. An hour and fourteen minutes, to be exact. It was almost three in the morning, and she couldn’t find sleep.

Angie left her bed, swinging her foot awkwardly around in search of her slippers. The bastards had slipped under the bed. She pondered whether it was really worth the effort to retrieve them, then decided to leave them there to gather dust for now. Despite not managing to fall asleep, she did not have the energy to bend over and break her arm in an attempt to reach them.

She walked up to the desk and turned on the lamp, then immediately regretted her decision. The blinding light made her wince and she let out a swear or two. The lamp went dark. She didn’t need another look at those ads anyway. She knew what they all said. All of them offered auditions that were either too far away from the manor for her to bother, for plays or movies she didn’t want to be in or for directors she loathed.

Angie had never considered herself to be picky, but she had her limits. For one, if she felt like gagging when saying a line, she was not inflicting upon herself to try and get a job where she’d have to repeat it several times a week. Secondly, she was not working with directors who wanted her to audition on their couch.

She needed some air, she decided. She had no reason to stay cooped up in this tiny little room, not when the house she lived in was so large she frequently got lost in it. If that was to happen during the night, she was sure Peggy would find her.

It was so warm she didn’t even put anything more on her shoulders than the nightgown she already wore. The windows were open, letting the thin white curtain to float inside like ghosts. Nothing supernatural there though; just the wind blowing lazily inside, barely cooling the corridor’s temperature.

Angie slid across the distance, dancing as she went, imagining herself the heroin of some Victorian era play. Something like that French movie she had seen last year, _Beauty & the Beast_.

Her gestures were made languid by her somnolence, but she still found enough energy to thrust herself to the end of the familiar wing.

Past the wooden door at the end of the corridor, she couldn’t remember what there was though. The door was painted in white and exulted the same eerie aura as she did in her white nightgown. She pushed it and was greeted by darkness.

A shiver ran down her spine, shaking away some remnants of drowsiness. A pity there wasn’t a camera recording from this angle, she thought. It would make for a wonderful shot, plunging into this mysterious black dimension.

Angie shivered some more. Maybe not taking her slippers was a mistake, she realized as her feet kissed the cold marble. Before she had the time to consider turning back though, a curious sound made her halt in her steps.

She could only perceive the echo, but by going a little farther…

She put her hand on the nearest wall and felt the dust gathering at her fingertips while she let them trail against it to guide her progress. It wasn’t nearly as important as the sound she kept hearing, drawing closer. It was something metallic, like a hammer falling repeatedly on an unfortunate piece of metal. A door, cracked open, appeared in her field of vision. A faint light came from the room behind it.

As she drew nearer, the sound became louder, and louder. In a corner of her mind, Angie felt her discernment start to arise. This could be dangerous. There might be someone inside their house. She should have gone and fetch Peggy -

But she was still ensconced in half a dream, and her curiousness was stronger. She pushed the door open…

Throughout the manor, a loud scream echoed.


	2. Senseless

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Meanwhile, from Howard's perspective...

It was late, very late, and Howard had a sudden idea. Inspiration struck, as it often did, while he was away from his lab. He believed in hard work more than he believed in inspiration; you did not build a financially stable empire by only working whenever your muse decided to hit you over the head with her latest obsession. However, whenever she did strike, Howard did not see the point in passing up the opportunity to use her blessings – as maddening as they could get.

He was driving his car from a late dinner in New York when the idea fluttered by. He caught it in his net and was so distracted by it that he stopped paying attention to where he was going. In no time, he had formulated in his mind the most ambitious project he ever had – and he was also very far from where he was heading.

There was no time to waste. Every second lost meant risking losing some scrap of idea. Fortunately, he had his notebook with him – his research on the Tesseract was too dangerous to idly carry around, he knew, but he had some bits and pieces to add every so often. What was written in the notebook was as nebulous as he could get, in case it fell into the wrong hands.

He needed a place to test a few things though. He stopped the car, and took the time to observe his surroundings. He had landed just close enough to one of his residence, he realized. All of them were equipped with – at the very least – the bare minimum equipment to be called a lab. It would be suitable.

That was the manor Howard had invited Peggy to reside in, he remembered. Despite the late hour, there would be no issue with his visit. He’d use his key – he checked the glove compartment and was reassured to see it on the key chain – and Peggy would never even suspect he was there. No need to bother her at three in the morning.

Soon enough, Howard arrived at his destination and had entered using the back door. He’d have to ask Jarvis to send someone clean the place a little, he thought ,noticing the cobwebs stretching until they broke when he opened the door. This whole wing of the manor hadn’t seen a cleaner in months – if not years!

He arrived at the lab, covered in as much dust and cobwebs as the rest of the wing. Coughing, he swatted most of it away and got to work.

His notebook was rapidly covered in more scribbles. He knew he’d have to copy them in a cleaner fashion later, because it had become near unreadable, even to his trained eyes.

Now though, he needed to do some testing. Unfortunately, he did not have the necessary equipement for it.

Howard cleared the dust from the nearest workbench at his disposal, and started to look for the appropriate tool. The heavy hammer would do. He grabbed the piece he needed to bend and started hitting it repeatedly.


	3. Fearless

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Where the source of the screaming is explained.

Not a sound came from her footsteps. The white shadow moved through the dark corridor, so graceful one would think, upon seeing her, that she was floating.

A pale hand raised to push against the door, flooding the dark corridor with a warm, yellow light. The shadow still had her eerie aura of white. The night gown didn’t have a creak, the wind creating slow waves in the fabric.

The white shadow stood in the doorway completely still, her expressionless face turned towards the room. Her eyes, a cold blue, stared absently at the inventor working the hammer. She seemed out of place, so close to the fires of the forge when she exulted a cold halo.

Her brow creased as colors came back to her features.

The inventor raised his eyes to her, finally noticing a presence -

Howard screamed loudly and let his hammer fall. The hammer landed on his foot, eliciting another scream, this time of pain instead of surprise, and he lost his balance. He fell backwards and landed on his back, leaving him defenseless. The air was drawnout of his lungs.

Angie was shaken out of her dream-like state by the scream. Panicked, she glanced around and grabbed the nearest tool – a crowbar – and brandished it to defense herself. Feeling brave, she took a couple of steps in his direction and hovered close enough that she could hit him with her improvised weapon if he made any move to come nearer.

“Who are you?” she asked. “What are you doing here?”

“I own this place!” he exclaimed with a weak voice, his fall having cut his air-supply for a few seconds. “What are you doing here?”

“I live here! And,” she added rapidly, “I’m not alone! I have a roommate!”

He was less likely to try to do anything if he knew Peggy was somewhere in the house.

“You’re Peggy’s roommate?” he asked, still on his back with a pained expression. “Where is she?”

“You know Peggy?”

Angie lowered the crowbar a little.

“I told you ; I own this place! Why are you awake!”

“Couldn’t sleep, it’s not a crime it it? I – Why’d you scream?”

“Because you look like a terrifying ghost!”

Angie looked down. Bare feet and in her white nightgown, in the middle of the night and standing in a dark corridor, she imagined she might have looked just a bit like a ghost.

“A terrifying, but very good-looking ghost that is,” he winked at her from the floor.

Angie lowered the crowbar.

“All right, I believe you, you’re definitely Howard Stark.”

**Author's Note:**

> Psst, come say hi on tumblr: https://mad-j-j.tumblr.com/, I don't bite!


End file.
